


Sugar

by JustaGibbsgirl



Series: Six Degrees of Jaqueline Sloane [4]
Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M, Slibbs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25568233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustaGibbsgirl/pseuds/JustaGibbsgirl
Summary: A case study of Special Agent Jacqueline Sloane
Relationships: Jethro Gibbs/Jacqueline "Jack" Sloane
Series: Six Degrees of Jaqueline Sloane [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1847821
Comments: 13
Kudos: 54





	Sugar

He took a long hard strangled swallow, forcing the hot liquid in his mouth to slide to his stomach without protest. Abruptly turning, he almost plowed into Bishop in his hurry to relieve his hands of the cup. Jack had barely had time to blink before Gibbs was in front of her again with a very unpleasant look muddying up his handsome features. Cool blues met caramel and she recognized the irritated look on his face. Coffee. That look only happened when someone had the balls to fuck with a Marine’s coffee. Rule 23. She stepped to the side to allow him to continue on with his mission, his features still holding onto the resting asshole face he was so damn good at. Her fingers unconsciously curled around her own cup of sweet caffeinated diner blend. Oh, how she absolutely pitied the poor soul on the receiving end of his coffee tirade.   
  
Everyone has a vice. Coffee was hers. Interesting that it was one of Gibbs’ too. A survival tactic if nothing else. A coping mechanism. To watch the steam slowly rise and swirl off the top of a fresh cup. To let the thick, rich aroma activate every neuron in her body. There were people in the world that would say coffee is just coffee. Another hot beverage to order. Some people sipped it. Some people drank it socially. And then there was the mainline crowd. The percentage of the population whose functionality in the world around them was in direct correlation with their coffee consumption. If no one else in the world was part of that group, she and Gibbs had it in spades. And the fact that their coffee tastes were so polar opposite, just added to the complexity.

Rumor was, his was the kind that stared you down at 100 yards and dared you to draw. She’d once watched him consume 3 back-to-back cups without so much as a shake of his hands or a twitch at his eye. Good, bad or ugly, there was a lot to be said for a Marine and his coffee. 

He once told her that the amount of sugar she used in her coffee was obscene. That there was no reason on God’s green earth for someone to completely obliviate the bitter thickness of that first sip. But for all his complaining, he certainly kept an obscene amount of it in his kitchen cabinet as of late. Pounds of it, in fact.

Did she know that she used more sugar than a normal person uses in a week, in one cup? Sure. But she liked to think it was to counteract her naturally sarcastic disposition. She had offered him a taste on more than one occasion. The look he had offered as his reply was damn near the same one that was staring down at her right now. 

Suddenly the bullpen was maddeningly quiet. All eyes had turned to the two people standing in the middle of it, the urban legend of Jethro Gibbs’ coffee ire drawing in each agents' attention.   
“Cheers?” she said, tilting it towards him, her eyebrows slightly raised. There was a half-smile with a trace of confusion on her face and in her voice as she spoke. When he didn’t return her smile, the moment became even more awkward. She raised her cup to her lips and took a slow sip. And with that sip, realization hit her like a hurricane.

She choked as if it had a bone in it. Sputtering, and trying desperately to save face, the sharpness of the liquid saturated her tongue. No sweet nectar greeted her tastebuds. No sugar rush found its way to her brain. She fought hard to swallow the bitter black brew. It fought back like Ali in the final round.

His empty hand trailed down to meet the one hanging at her side. He linked a finger with hers and slowly lifted her hand until it was between them. He pushed his offending cup into her open palm. Fingers collided as she relinquished control of the black tar that he called coffee. The black tar that seemed to be at the very center of those beautiful blue eyes she so adored. Finally procuring the liquid gold that commanded his soul, he took a long, slow drag as if it were his last cigarette. She watched his eyes close, watched his features weather from dismay to pleasure. She side-eyed the rest of the bullpen, to his waiting team and could almost hear the collective breath that everyone was holding.

His eyes slowly opened and met hers. The entire conversation happened there, in their eyes, in a matter of seconds. “Sorry for the mix-up. Sorry you drink shitty coffee. Apologies later. Stay safe…”  
He tipped his cup to tap hers in an informal acknowledgement that all was forgiven. 

“God, what a horrible way to die,” she muttered. “Death by coffee.”

He looked her dead in the eye, a smirk edging into the corners of his mouth. His head tilted slightly to look at her, all brown eyes and blonde and coffee and glasses and….

“Yeah? I can think of worse ways to go,” he said, a smile playing into his words, veiled so thinly she almost missed it.

On tiptoes, with the eyes of every agent in the room at her back, her lips brushed his ear. 

“Cowboy, I guarantee I can think of something better.” 

Dropping her heels back to the ground but keeping a tight hold on his lapel, another conversation played out so quickly, so brilliantly, with just their eyes, that he gave an involuntary shiver. Her eyes attempted to draw a reply from his blue ocean depths. He let his boat dock in the caramel sea for a whisper of a moment.

“Rule 23, Agent Sloane,” and tapping her cup once more with his, he took a slow step back, blue eyes shining even more brightly with the smile that was now in them. 


End file.
